Bad News From Finland

Media coverage of Israel is often a parody of honest journalism as defined by its own ethical guidelines. This project was created to expose the frequent distortion of news about Israel by some Finnish journalists. This blog states up front that it provides only negative facts. It shows that by using real news stories without context, one can make any country look bad.

Monday, October 15, 2007

Finland has fallen far behind the other Nordic Countries in cutting back on greenhouse gas emissions. Finland ranks 36th on the Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI), putting it on a par with Algeria and Belarus. Sweden is at the top of the list, and Denmark is in third place."Finland has settled for a place in the back row", says Professor Jyri Seppälä of the Finnish Environment Indstitute.

This is not a man who is afraid of being right - or of being alone. Last Tuesday, Heikki Ylikangas published the book Romahtaako rintama? ("Is the Front Collapsing?") whose basic thesis is that the Finns executed more of their own soldiers for desertion during the final phases of the continuation War than had been previously disclosed.

Danish film director Karsten Kjær has reacted with anger and astonishment at a decision by the Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE) not to show his film Bloody Cartoons, which analyses the controversy surrounding the publication of caricatures depicting the prophet Muhammad by a Danish newspaper in early 2006. The film is part of the world's largest international documentary project called Why Democracy?

In October this year, more than 300 million people around the world will have access to ten documentaries concerning democracy. About 40 TV companies are involved in the project. Only nine of the films are to be aired by YLE. The decision to shelve Bloody Cartoons is exceptional: even the Al-Arabiya,the second-most popular TV channel in the Middle East, will air the film on November 11th. Kjær says that in Britain, the BBC pondered whether or not to allow shots showing the controversial cartoons during the airing of the documentary. The BBC decided to show the cartoons, even though it would not do so while the controversy itself was raging.

Finnish teenagers lag behind their Nordic contemporaries on the income front. Where a Danish youth has an impressive EUR 152 at their disposal per month, a Finnish teenager has to survive with a mere EUR 48 of spending money. The primary source of income for the Finnish 13 to 17-year-olds is their parents, but the Finnish providers are fairly tight-fisted compared with their Scandinavian counterparts. In Finland the average amount of monthly allowance for a teenager is EUR 40, against Denmark’s 50, Sweden’s 63, and Norway’s 70 euros per month. Furthermore, four out of ten Finnish youngsters do not get any spending money at all. In Sweden, on the other hand, very few parents deny their kids a monthly allowance.

Could the worries of Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen (Centre) about the limits to his own privacy be the road to self-censorship of the media? Will it lead to us journalists becoming wary of spreading information that might be objectionable to Vanhanen? Will we for instance henceforth refrain from any references to his romantic adventures before the rings have been exchanged or before Vanhanen has himself promised to publish news of his dating?

Welcome to the Bad News from Finland blog!

News coverage from Israel in much of the media is frequently a parody of honest journalism as defined by the 'Code of Ethics' guidelines of the profession. In order to expose the frequent distortion of news by a number of Finnish journalists, “Bad News from Finland” has been created. It focuses on negative news items from Finland. Yet it is much more honest than what these correspondents report. This blog only provides true facts and states clearly that it states negative facts only. It shows that by using real news stories without context, one can make any country look bad

Make your own parody of biased media: start a “bad news” blog about another country.